The study, by a researcher at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, found that blacks tip on average 20 percent less than whites. In addition, restaurant workers of all races dislike waiting on black people because they assume the tips will be less no matter how good the service. NPR's Juan Williams reports.

The study found that 63 percent of blacks and 30 percent of whites didn't understand that the standard restaurant tip in the United States is 15 to 20 percent. The difference between how blacks and whites view tipping has serious ramifications for restaurants, including lawsuits and lost profits, Williams reports.

In some cases the difference in tipping may be the result of poor service, but blacks interviewed in one of Lynn's studies rated the service slightly higher yet still tipped less than whites, he says.

If a waiter says, 'I don't want to wait on that table because they're black or they're Hispanic, then they tend to give less service and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy," Fernandez explains..

He says cultural elements — blacks have avoided sit-down restaurants in favor of take out or self-service eateries — institutionalized racism that exists in the restaurant industry and education about tipping are all behind the discrepancy. "How do people learn about tipping? If you don't go, you don't know."

So basically, black people do tip less and the restaurant industry needs to educate them (as well as some white people) on how much to tip.

In your opinion, it has no validity. But the point of the article was just that blacks do on average tip less, or that wait staff (black and white and other) believe they tip less, but that there may be some valid reasons for either the lower tips or the perception that they tip less. Might not actually be based on racism. Seems pretty valid to me, and probably to most rational people. But rational is generally not something that applies to any race related debate. Its the same never ending discussion with the usual suspects talking at each other instead of actually seriously debating the issue. Feel free to carry on.

btw why is it that "the restaurant industry needs to educate them (as well as some white people) on how much to tip" but not "the restaurant industry needs to pay its servers a living wage"?

furthermore, here's some nice easy wikipedia reading that you will undoubtedly ignore

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Main article: Self-fulfilling prophecyStereotypes lead people to expect certain actions from members of social groups. These stereotype-based expectations may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, in which one's inaccurate expectations about a person's behavior, through social interaction, prompt that person to act in stereotype-consistent ways, thus confirming one's erroneous expectations and validating the stereotype.[51][52]Word, Zanna and Cooper (1974) demonstrated the effects of stereotypes in the context of a job interview. White participants interviewed black and white subjects who, prior to the experiments, had been trained to act in a standardized manner. Analysis of the videotaped interviews showed that black job applicants were treated differently: They received shorter amounts of interview time and less eye contact; interviewers made more speech errors (e.g., stutters, sentence incompletions, incoherent sounds) and physically distanced themselves from black applicants. In a second experiment, trained interviewers were instructed to treat applicants, all of whom were white, like the whites or blacks had been treated in the first experiment. As a result, applicants treated like the blacks of the first experiment behaved in a more nervous manner and received more negative performance ratings than interviewees receiving the treatment previously afforded to whites.[53]A 1977 study by Snyder, Tanke and Berscheid found a similar pattern in social interactions between men and women. Male undergraduate students were asked to talk to female undergraduates, whom they believed to be physically attractive or unattractive, on the phone. The conversations were taped and analysis showed that men who thought that they were talking to an attractive woman communicated in a more positive and friendlier manner than men who believed that they were talking to unattractive women. This altered the women's behavior: Female subjects who, unknowingly to them, were perceived to be physically attractive behaved in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with subjects who were regarded as unattractive.[54]

maybe servers should dutifully perform the responsibilities of their jobs in order to avoid such a self-fulfilling prophecy, and maybe business owners should pay their employees a living wage

nahhh that couldn't be it, black people just need to be educated. as a conservative, just saying that makes me all warm and tingly inside

I generally tip 10-15% percent and I might occasionally do 20 but only if it's exceptional service. I didn't even know tipping hairstylists was a thing until recently. I still don't tip mine because he owns the place. Never used all that other stuff.

tipping is a social construct with questionable economic ethics at its base, but there is definitely a relationship between social behavioral normatives (like tipping) and education (especially in the context of a society convoluted by completely different sociological processes that are at the core of the disparity at hand.)

ps tipping 10% is a dickwad move unless your server is a total fuging twat